Remote businesses saw the light of the day in the past few years.
In 2020, remote business opportunities made entrepreneurs switch to the virtual world. While a few started from scratch, others shifted their brick-and-mortar stores to online platforms.
The US witnessed a record number of new home-based and remote businesses in 2020. There was a 49% increase in new businesses from Quarter 2 to Quarter 3.
If you plan to run a remote business, too, save this blog. Here, we will provide you with a detailed guide on how to run a remote business.
A fully remote business is a virtual business setup without any headquarters or physical offices. Remote businesses use virtual meeting platforms and home offices instead of in-person meetings and office spaces.
Fully remote businesses allow employees to work from home, cafes, libraries, parks, or coworking spaces. As long as employees have stable internet connectivity and a laptop, they can work from anywhere.
Running a company remotely may seem challenging. But once you complete the initial phase, you can derive several benefits from a remote business. Here are a few:
Remote business opportunities come with great flexibility. They are suitable for people who juggle many responsibilities at a time.
You can drop the kids at school, take care of elderly parents, and spend quality time with family while managing work.
It allows employees to be productive while maintaining a healthy personal and professional life balance.
Saving money is one of the many advantages of remote businesses. You do not need office space when all your employees work from home. Thus, you save on the rent or other real estate expenses, utilities, furniture, and other operating expenses.
In 2020, several businesses realized that their employees showed higher productivity when working from home. A survey by ConnectSolutions showed that 77% of remote work employees showed increased productivity at least a few times in a month. The reasons can be greater flexibility, fewer distractions, no travel exhaustion, etc.
Remote businesses can hire talents from anywhere and everywhere. There is no limitation to hiring from a specific geographic region. Employers can hire people who best fit the job role regardless of their locations.
Running a remote business requires significantly low capital and overhead expenses. Hence, employers can expect more income than expenses leading to faster business growth.
Employers can witness fewer missed days during remote work. Since remote business offers flexibility, employees manage to work even when they are sick. Hence, it results in fewer employee absences and sick leaves.
Work-life balance is the best benefit of remote work. Employees can choose their work timing and environment. Further, employees can save commuting time. Hence, employee satisfaction and retention rate are better in remote businesses.
An entrepreneur must consider the roadblocks of remote business when learning the ‘how to start a remote business’ process.
Addressing the possible remote business challenges would be necessary to run the company remotely.
Sharing data in remote businesses is quite risky. Since employees work on home networks and personal devices, carelessness in security measures can be costly.
Entrepreneurs can provide devices and run a security check through systems after employee onboarding to avoid security risks. Further, they can also set up specific security systems for remote work.
Remote businesses work on technology. Hence, you may face challenges like system failure, internet instability, power outage, or even technical issues with the virtual platforms.
You cannot do much to avoid these risks. But have a backup plan ready, like alternate platforms to connect and cloud storage.
From regular in-person meetings to video calls, initially, communication may be challenging in remote businesses.
Set up communication channels like Slack or Skype to ensure proper communication among employees and managers. You can also conduct check-in video calls, online training, or chat sessions to keep the communication intact.
Use the right tools and metrics to track workflow and employee performance. Trello is an easy-to-use platform that helps to keep the projects organized. Further, you can set realistic goals and deadlines for each remote employee to track their performance.
Employee productivity may fluctuate in remote businesses due to loneliness, lack of supervision, demotivation, etc.
Managers must ensure regular communication, feedback sharing, etc., to boost employee productivity.
Are you wondering how to make your remote business work?
Well, it’s just about getting the right strategies in place. Entrepreneurs need to follow certain tips to run remote businesses successfully. They are:
Social media channels can make your brand reach a wider audience. Interact with audiences and share information about your remote business through every social media platform.
Also, these platforms help you to build relationships and strong online communities of supporters.
Whether you want to attract prospects, new hires, or provide company updates, a detailed website does it all.
Create a website that serves as an extension of your brand. It will also be a point of contact where you can engage with your employees and customers.
Fortunately, employers can still ‘see’ their remote employees without meeting them. Video conferencing platforms, online messaging apps, etc., allow employers to keep in touch with their remote teams.
Maintain a call ritual to encourage regular conversations. It will ensure that none of your remote employees feel isolated. Conduct morning attendance calls, departmental meets, team meets, etc., to maintain consistent communication.
Employers can also arrange coffee break calls in-between work hours to promote team bonding and collaboration.
Stable communication channels are a must for remote businesses. Your employees must be able to contact you every day, ask questions, share updates, feedback, etc.
Set up communication channels or use messaging apps for quick chats and clarifications regarding work. Also, ensure that all remote team members share their contact information and availability schedules for easy communication.
Cloud storage is a must for company information. But employers must also consider educating employees about using secure networks, password safety, and management. Not using public networks and keeping the data protected with a strong password are the two things you can do to avoid data breaches.
Running a company remotely is in your hands. To ensure success in remote business, follow these tips. Also, keep yourself equipped to confront the remote business challenges head-on.
The ‘how to run a remote business’ guide starts with setting up the business successfully.
Hence, this section details setting up and running a remote business.
Create a plan for your remote business that includes;
Register your business with a physical mailing address.
Whether you build a remote business from scratch or transition to a virtual model, announce your launch as fast as possible.
The companies that transitioned temporarily announced remote working to their employees soon to provide them ample time for arrangements. So, the sooner you let your employees know, the better.
Also, you must convey about remote working when you hire employees. Employers can also mention remote work in their job posts to maintain transparency.
Use the following channels to announce your remote business existence:
However, make sure that you are ready with all the technical aspects before announcing your remote business. If it is a transition, make the necessary changes like canceling utilities, office leases, replacing on-premise software with cloud-based solutions, etc.
Set up remote work policies to communicate all the rules and guidelines for working remotely.
The guidelines must provide employees with information about the company culture, expectations from employees, and the code of conduct in the virtual workplace.
Before starting or transitioning to a remote business, create an outline of the policy that addresses;
Discuss with the necessary people and create a detailed remote work policy. Try and update the policies annually.
Remote work offers flexibility. But certain job roles like customer support demand employees to be available for specific hours.
To ensure a healthy work-life balance for employees, employers must outline the rules for employee availability, time off, and scheduling.
The same schedule won’t apply to all employees if you have global remote teams. Also, holidays may differ across regions. Hence, you may standardize the number of vacation days a year that employees can use according to their wishes.
Running a remote business becomes simpler when you have the right tools. Employers must decide and mention the tools used in the remote work guidelines.
Based on the nature of your remote business, you may use;
Assess the tools and choose the best-suited ones for your remote business.
Virtual teams are required to communicate more than the on-premise teams. However, that does not mean flooding their inbox with messages.
Set clear communication rules for the employees.
To run a remote business successfully, ensure that your employees are comfortable and supported with resources.
Typically, on-premise employees get equipment and software to complete their jobs. Try to do the same for remote employees. Provide them with everything for their workspace.
If employers cannot provide the workspace stuff, they can offer expense reimbursements. Also, they can provide a stipend to cover the costs.
Virtual onboarding for remote employees is important.
Employees can transition better through the onboarding process. They can ask questions and clarify doubts. Also, managers can convey to them the remote work guidelines and help them learn to use the tools.
Employers can consider the following aspects during remote onboarding:
Managing in-house teams and remote teams is different. Therefore, train the remote managers beforehand. Provide them with adequate resources like;
Further, train and support the managers to ensure that they can lead the remote teams, engage them, and keep them motivated.
To strengthen the company’s culture and enhance team collaboration, implement remote team-building activities.
Remote employees may often feel disconnected and lonely, leading to low productivity. Hence, make it a priority to connect with the teams.
Hold one-to-one video calls, set up team meets, virtual coffee breaks, team lunch on Fridays, online events or games, debates, etc.
While employers set up remote businesses or transition to virtual platforms, they may lose existing regular employees.
However, with the savings of remote businesses, employers can add more employees to the remote teams.
Regardless of when you hire new remote employees, ensure that you have a proper recruitment process aligned with the legal hiring policies.
Employers must choose remote business ideas that align with their interests and knowledge.
However, if employers transition from traditional to virtual business, they may need to change the way of offering their products. For instance, offering online consultations, setting up delivery services, etc.
If you are looking for remote business opportunities, consider these ideas.
Several tools are available for running a remote business.
Managers can organize their work, collaborate better, streamline processes, and stay connected using these tools.
A few popular remote business tools that employers can consider are:
After a successful remote business setup, employers get caught up thinking about how to set up a remote team.
Make a list of the job roles that you need to fill. Prioritize based on urgent needs and budget. Several remote businesses hire tax consultants, IT specialists, etc., to ensure remote business success.
Prepare a checklist of skills and qualities required for a specific job position before posting the vacancy. Don’t forget to consider that you want a candidate who can perform the job remotely. A few skills that employers usually look for are;
To reach out to remote employees, write job descriptions using keywords like remote work, work from home, telework, etc. Use relevant hashtags like remote work available to get the ideal candidates.
Conduct video interviews after reviewing the applications. Ask the right remote work questions to get an idea about the candidate’s ability to communicate, collaborate remotely, deal with distractions, maintain productivity, etc.
Throughout the interview, observe how the candidate behaves – how they respond to emails, the time taken to respond, and how well they communicate during the interview.
Multiplier can help you with setting up a remote team. The EOR platform enables employers to hire talents globally. Also, the platform offers the infrastructure to employ talent in another country without the employer having to launch a subsidiary.
Setting up a remote business is simple if you have the right strategies and tools to implement the strategies. Further, hiring the best fit for all the job roles is also important.
Management in remote businesses is challenging. Managing the remote teams, their payroll, communication, onboarding, etc. But with Multiplier, you can make these processes easier too.
Multiplier offers global payroll solutions in 150+ countries. It manages anything and everything, including multi-country payroll, insurance, and benefits.
Remote & Global Workforce
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Remote & Global Workforce
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